I'm in a 2009 and have an odd random ticking/pinging sound when the car is warming up. Sound comes from the front end. I can only hear it in a quiet garage. I always just assumed it was the metal expanding as it comes up to temp. I've not had any engine problems, but I do have a constant valve clacking type sound through the low RPM range and at idle which I also assume is normal with these engines. Correct?

yeah, lots of folks confuse the possibly "bad" ping with the normal relatively loud valve noise. There are lots of heat-induced pings/pops all over the car after hard driving, and those are also totally normal. It seems likely that your problem is that you have a normal M3